That’s just one example, however – a couple of defensive victories clearly inspiring teams. But how much are Premiership teams influenced by tactics at major international tournaments? Quantifying ‘defensiveness’ is not easy, but here’s an attempt at finding a correlation.

There’s two sets of data we need. The ‘outcome’ is quite easy to find appropriate data for – in terms of how defensive-minded the Premier League seasons are, we can use a simple ‘goals per game’ statistic. Not a perfect measure for judging ‘defensiveness’ – if we were being more thorough, we might use a multitude of factors including shots on goal, shots on target etc. But in the interests of simplicity and accessibility to data, we’ll use goals per game ratio.

Finding an appropriate set of data for the international tournaments is a little more difficult. We could use a simple goals per game ratio for these tournaments as well, but this would probably miss the point in what we were trying to achieve. In 2004/05, the Premier League sides were not chiefly inspired by Euro 2004 itself, simply by the winners of it, Greece. Therefore, we have to take account of the ‘defensiveness’ of the victorious sides, as well as the simple goals per game ratio of the tournament as a whole.

Therefore, there’s a need to create a new set of data, in a move which is probably riddled with statistical inaccuracies. But, again, for the sake of simplicity, let’s use (a) the goals per game ratio of the international tournament as a whole, and (b) the number of goals scored per game of the champions of that tournament, and multiply them. So, for 2006, we take the overall goals per game (2.3), the number of goals Italy scored per game (1.7), and get a ‘defensiveness factor’ of 3.93.

Then, because we have to consider two Premier League campaigns after each international tournament, we’ll take the subsequent two seasons, and find the average of their goals per game ratio. So, to consider the influence of the 2006 World up, we take the goals per game ratio from 2006/07 (2.45) and from 2007/08 (2.64) and end up with an average of 2.55.

And then, we plot them onto a line graph with two y axes, and get a result like this:

Or, if you’re more of a scattergraph fan, here you go:

From the line graph, we have little of interest towards the beginning of the Premier League – perhaps when teams were more tactically naive, or simply because of the smaller international tournaments (and therefore smaller and less reliable sample size).

But, from the start of the millennium, we find a much more interesting pattern – every time the blue line goes up, the red line follows, and every time it falls, we have the same effect. 2004 saw the lowest defensiveness factor for the international tournament, and sure enough, we had a defensive-minded couple of Premier League campaigns.

The scattergraph is slightly less detailed because of its relative simplicity, but probably comes out with a more interesting-looking correlation.

Conclusion

Statistically reliable? Probably not. We haven’t considered the factor of extra-time in the major international tournaments, for example, and our method of finding a ‘defensiveness factor’ might not be strictly correct. We haven’t looked at the influence of Champions League winners, and there could be an argument about how much goals-per-game actually sums up how defensive football is.

Nevertheless, there’s a decent pattern in the past few years. We can’t prove that correlation is the same as causation – but if it is, then the international tournament with the lowest ‘defensiveness factor’ is a little worrying for fans of attack-minded football.

54 Responses to “ Will a defensive-minded World Cup mean a defensive-minded Premier League season? ”

joe bloggs on August 13, 2010 at 12:54 pm

i hate you…your articles are so interesting that i cannot stop reading them. but i am on vacation and not close to computers…i am already behind on my reading and now you publish some more! rest man! rest!

Someone on August 13, 2010 at 6:09 pm

lol

adam on August 13, 2010 at 1:06 pm

A good article- the one reason I’d disagree is that the gulf between the top 8-10 teams and the the other 10-12 teams is growing so quickly that there will possibly be more “comprehensive” wins than in the past- as shown last season. I’d say that the overall goals per game will stay fairly similar, but the games involving similarly positioned teams will drop.

mikex on August 13, 2010 at 1:14 pm

That is what I told my friend after watch Che VS Man first game
both of them had 10 or sometime 11 players on their side when play defense!!
Player’s stmina nowaday is pretty high which allow them to travel up and down the field all day – night

I don’t know what to say but it kinda boring watching 11 men defense while 8 men try to break the lock.

If america rules FIFA I beleive they will come up with american style regulation that allow only specific number of player could stay in their own half LOL

sorry about my english

Ronan on August 13, 2010 at 1:24 pm

Just wondering if there’s any particular reason for choosing the 2 sets of the y axes in the line graph? Why start the international one at zero and the premier league one at 2.45?

Also, did you consider using the same statistical values? i.e multiplying the goals per game per season by the number of goals per game of that year’s champions?

For example, taking the period 2006-2008, using the international method gives you a value of 5.4 for the PL (83 goals scored by the top team in the 06/07 season and 80 in 07/08).

1. Because the two values are different things
2. Because the Premier League goals per game ratio varies very little. Had it started at 0, the gap between 2.4 and 2.6 would be so little that you wouldn’t be able to find a pattern
3. No. Because that’s not what we’re trying to find.

Ronan on August 13, 2010 at 1:44 pm

Fair enough, and there’s definitely some sort of correlations far as I’m can see, although I am no statistician.

I also think it is far less likely that teams will look to emulate Spain’s style of play than Greece’s, for example.

paul on August 15, 2010 at 9:46 am

have to say that I agree regarding using the same “units” ie using products or sums for both data sets – if they dont correlate then, well… they dont correlate

I think Greece had the capacity to influence Premiership teams because managers could see a lesson they wanted to learn- how competent teams can be competitive against opposition you are inferior to in modern football. That is a message relevant to 15 odd sides.

Spain showed how technically superior sides could strangle the life out of the opposition by prioritizing possession over all else. The skills and patience required to do this is possessed by few if any Premier League sides.

I therefore predict that Spain’s win will be less influential than Greece’s.

mikex on August 13, 2010 at 3:09 pm

Spain Tiki-taka may look like the best way to play football
but time to time I wanna see a “Kick the ball foward” Wimbledon style ^_^

sorry about my english

Shantanu on August 13, 2010 at 1:35 pm

Another possibility is that at that around 1994, when the difference between the WC and the EPL is most pronounced, the number of foreign players in the League was very low- and hence the translation of WC strategies into EPL strategy was not as smooth as it is today.

Big problem with causality – who is to say that the big leagues, particularly the prem dont influence the goals per game in major tournaments. Also, interesting point about ‘big wins.’ You can get more goals when teams are more defensive, as often you’ll see teams go in with a defensive strategy and then crumble when they concede as they have no plan b. Teams that go in with an attack minded attitude will probably carry on attacking when they go one or two down, as they might as well… this probably keeps the scores down. So a better idea might be to exclude all results won by more than a 3 goal margin… or something. In general though, I think looking at the influence of major tournaments on premiership outcomes is a good idea…

hwk on August 13, 2010 at 6:00 pm

‘So a better idea might be to exclude all results won by more than a 3 goal margin’

Uh, that is like manipulating the results.

but one thing would be interesting: the first 45 minutes.
the plan A of the teams. are they playing a more defensive style than a season earlier.
are the teams only scoring in the last 15 minutes of the second half ?…

the Greece victory has something special. it showed that it can be successful to readjust your team against every opponent.

Oh, 2004. Not only Porto and Greece – that year Once Caldas from Colombia won the Copa Libertadores with an uber-defensive team, knocking down São Paulo and Boca Juniors.

Not to mention the Detroit Pistons…

Patrick on August 13, 2010 at 2:47 pm

Another thing to look at would be the transfer of players from the winning team of that international tournament to the Premier League. I think it is likely that players going from a defensive minded team are likely to be played defensively for their club (new or otherwise).

While I doubt that there is any direct causality, it’s still interesting to think about.

The first thing we have to ask is: Are the national teams the once who set the agenda, or is it club football? I’d think that the clubs are predominate, as they have more time to develop systems with their players while national teams mostly have to work with the material they get.

Therefore I’d rather compare the previous two seasons of an internatioal tournament to the tournament instead of the following two.

If you do that, the prediction for the international tournaments seems to be quite the opposite (and there is none to be made for the premier league at all): If there are more league goals the following tournaments see less – and the other way around.

So how can we predict something for the EPL from this? Simply by ignoring the tournaments. The previous two premier league seasons before the most recent one seemed to be negatvie outliers when it comes to the amount of goals. So I would predict a Premier League season between 2.6 and 2.65 goals per game this time.

dollymix on August 13, 2010 at 2:55 pm

Trying to factor in the prior season’s Champions League would likely lead to multicollinearity, since it seems like World Cup coaches are often themselves influenced by the Champions League (we heard a lot of talk this year about how Inter’s performance affected the World Cup).

Blipp on August 14, 2010 at 12:40 am

I doubt Inter’s CL win had much of an impact on the World Cup. Pretty much all the teams who did well sticked to what they played during the qualification campaign or some evolution thereof. The only real change happened to the eventual winners Spain, who in an intriguing turnaround changed their approach but not the tools employed.

While depriving the opponent of the ball may have been an additional benefit of tici taca in the past, it turned into the main purpose during the WC. That’s definitely a more defensive mindset than we are used to from the Spaniards, but the change seems to be inspired by the loss to Switzerland rather than Mourinho.

The differences are just too obvious. Del Bosque turned to a “prevent loosing” strategy and while Mo certainly is a cautious manager, that is absolutely not what he is about. He will take risks and move in for the kill if he sees an opening. Additionally Inter in the final CL stages vs. Spain 2010 against Germany in particular illustrated why the age old quality vs. quantity of possession debate is here to stay.

Danny on August 13, 2010 at 2:59 pm

Look at the players, though. Arsene Wenger just lost Djourou to another long-term injury, which means that Arsenal’s only defender to have ever played top-flight football is the error-prone (as ZM pointed out) Vermaelen. Manchester United looks to be losing the services of Rio Ferdinand, John Terry seems to have his best days behind him, Ledley King is more-or-less finished, Matthew Upson is on the decline, and there are other examples. We’re at a bit of a gap between generations of top-notch defenders, and it’s hard to see how defenses are going to manage to keep out the offenses of teams that seem to be (with Chamakh, Hernandez, Silva, and others) boosting their attacking options.

dollymix on August 13, 2010 at 3:07 pm

By the same token though, you could argue that the weaker defenders of the top teams means that they are more likely to play more defensive formations to cover (e.g. two holding players), and that therefore the best teams are likely to score fewer goals.

I guess the question is which teams affect the goals-to-games ratio the most? I would imagine (though I have no evidence) that it’s the top five or six teams, i.e. the goals-to-games ratio excluding games played by the top 6 would be more stable than the overall ratio.

sindarta on August 13, 2010 at 3:10 pm

I think that plotting a goals^2/game^2 with a goals/game is not at all suitable for the statistical analysis you are trying to do. It would be more appropriate to plot square roots of the multiplication of goals/game of the previous and next year and the defensiveness factor, which would also have the advantage of having the same dimension. That would give you for instance for 2006 a EPL factor of 2.54 (sqrt(2.45*2.64) in comparison to the 1.98(sqrt(3.93) of the WC (which makes more sense since there were less goals scored in the WC). If you want to get really nerdy you could have the Pythagoras norm of both terms but that would be a step too far.

Of course this kind of statistics doesn’t really reflect on the pitch. The greek defence was based on a strict man to man, while in EPL the “defensiveness” of the tournament was interpreted with more rigid sides still playing zonal marking. If we are talking about mentality then, yes, 2004 was a very influential tournament, but if we go to the specific tactics of the winner I don’t think that they influence the EPL (or for that matter die Bundesliga or the French League) that much.

Brenton on August 13, 2010 at 3:15 pm

I wonder if it translates more to cup competitions like the Champions League than the leagues. I think cup competitions are inherently more defensive. If you draw a league match, you drop two points. If you draw in a cup, you can still win in extra time or penalties. (or in many cases, you have 180 minutes rather than 90 minutes to score a goal) A club could go unbeaten all season and still get relegated, while a cup team could win the cup without winning a match/leg. A style like Spain’s is too defensive for league competition IMO. France in 2006 for example, it made sense that they looked so sluggish in the group stage compared to the knockout stage, as they were so defensive minded.

wakka on August 13, 2010 at 4:26 pm

A bit off-topic: it should be noted that Mourinho’s “legendary” comment about parking the bus….was just Mourinho using a ridiculously common portuguese expression that has been used by everyone in portugal about every single game in which one team is settling for defending since basically the dawn of time.

Is it really an influence World Cup / Euro -> national League or just a normal / general development in football? (a difference in Spain, Itay, Germany, …) Maybe we should look at the season before the World cup and the season after the tournament. and we should look at the success of the defenesiveness.
A defensive tournament and the winner scoring 5 times each game (or 10 in one), that is differnent than 4 goals per game. it is a statistically problem and it’s a difference in success of attacking or defensive football.
are the teams that score less (next season) more successful then last season? and are they more defencive, or are the opponents better in defending? what about possession?

I mean, was Spain defensive when they won 1-0 in all the knockout games?

mikex on August 14, 2010 at 4:56 am

Very wise question and we all know that Spain is the side that play offense!!

Defensive mind in this case should be “no risky move! keep knocking till the door open”
Offensive mind in this case would be “Super long from CB to “Heskey role FW” and make a wish”

hwk on August 14, 2010 at 1:32 pm

I just wanted to make clear that there is a difference between scoring goals and play attacking football. It is about taking risk, about possession, shots on goal, goals per game. Are you playing more in your half or in the opponents half of the pitch, …

Was Inter a defensive team (the whole season)? or an attacking team?

It is not enough to look at the winner of the final, maybe the first four teams give a better picture of which strategy was the most successful. (It will be no surprise if the best teams score more and receive less.)

ZMs idea was great, but it is difficult to prove anything. Is a decreasing goals per game ratio that meaningful? Yields the second season after a World Cup more goals or attacking football? and if it does, why? because of the managers copying tactics frome a World Cup? or because a different pre-season preparation (with the whole team)? or is it a normal trend in world football?

the “defensiveness factor” went down after 1994, 2002, and 2008.
or said with other words were at a low point in 1996, 2004, and 2010.
the goals per game ratio of went up (stayed nearly the same) from 1994 to 1996 and went down from 2002 to 2004.
But from 1998 to 2000 the Premiership ratio went down and the “defensiveness factor” went up a little.

I see two problems:
1. I don’t know how much we can trust the “defensiveness factor”,
2. I think it was not necessary to take the average of the subsequent two Premier League seasons. We would achieve a better result with the data of each season.

All I can see is that in 2000 was a high point in scoring goals, and around 1996 and 2004 there was a low point.

PJ on August 13, 2010 at 6:59 pm

Have there been many significant rule changes over this sample? I’m just wondering whether there could be another factor which is driving the causation behind your two variables. Changes in the offside law, for instance, should affect the “defensiveness” of the league & tournaments in the same way.

mikex on August 14, 2010 at 11:15 am

very interesting.
but it up to us ,the audience. as long as it still fun to watch. no rules need to change.

some people feel great when an underdog team can hold those tika taka and overthrow them with nice counter attack or a set play.

some people feel great to see a brazilian style football dominate the game and teach the other team a big lesson how football should play.

at the end of the day
a germany 4-1 vs england compare to a spain 1-0 vs every team.
ask yourself which one is funnier to watch ^_^ (sorry about my english)

Scarface on August 14, 2010 at 1:24 am

I think not. The Premier Leagues top managers have already stated there dismay at the defensive mindedness of teams competing int’ world cup. I think one thing that will follow through from the world cup however is possession based football. The 2 finalists Spain and Holland both held the ball for long stages without progressing until the precise moment. And the top managers would have seen that the reason for England’s disastrous campaign was due to their failure of holding the ball and wasting possession by lofting long balls into congested areas. I think this may bring in a change in English styles of play, the ‘hoof it up to the big man’ philosophy seems to be dying out. Obviously Sam Allardyce’s Blackburn will continue with this, but teams like Chelsea who used to favour this system are starting to play possesion football (as is evident in their preseason football, despite them being abysmal, they didnt resort to the hoof it up tactics and making Drogba bully centre backs). Even Liverpool have started this and in terms of styles of play, the Premier League may actually start to become a lot more similar to that of La Liga.

This prediction is based on instict, it may not entirely be true, but I do think that the majority of Premiere League manager will be underwhelmed, as opposed to overwhelmed by the World Cup tactics. If anything, the world cup may be positive for English football and hopefully the 20 managers will learn from the world cups mistakes, not follow.

sibelkacem on August 14, 2010 at 8:47 am

I must be weak with graphs, but shouldn’t the red snake be pushed to the right by two years? It seems to me, from the graph, that the EPL trend is concurrent to the international trend, and not subsequent.

On a sidenote, I think your graphs would be more readable if you did not put year numbers between “|”, but ON them, if you know what I mean. And then, slightly visible vertical lines could be lead from the bottom to the top of the graph.

reg on August 14, 2010 at 11:57 am

this is a very weak post to follow on from the excellent world cup postings. stick to the ‘day job’ fellas.

SteveHolt on August 14, 2010 at 12:53 pm

This article is rather weak by ZM standards, in fact its very weak in general.

There is a great difficulty in quantifying a lot of the phenomena of football. Trying to invent a statistical model for defensiveness to justify an anecdotal trend is pretty poor analysis. If one digs for long enough in the unrelated variables that are the world cup and EPL I am sure a corrolation at least as good as provided above could be generated.

Off the top of my head, based on the trend of World cup finals and defensivness, The defensiveness of a EPL season after a world cup final is proportional to the number of european teams competing in the final match.

On a serious note though, the statistical analysis of football is complicated because a lot of the game is not binary… a sucessful pass can be af varying quality… this quality cannot be quantified because it depends on the movement of the players around the recieving player, the receivers mind, feet and wit… as well as the opposition.

Such a simple correlation as presented above does a disservice to the good work of this site, never mind the game of football we all love

Walker on August 14, 2010 at 5:11 pm

To be fair to ZM i don’t think he was trying to introduce everyone to an expert analysis of the above, but instead was trying to promote a fundamental basis for discussion; which it does. Congratulations!

Having seen 7 EPL scores and listened to some general “expert” punditry, i think the answer is going to be no!

Geez guys give them a break. So it’s not their best article. It’s still an interesting theory!

mikex on August 14, 2010 at 5:32 pm

Yeh what’s wrong with people nowaday.
at least we should pay respect when we visit people’s space (house)

sibelkacem on August 14, 2010 at 9:31 pm

What’s up with people nowadays? Standard critics towards an article that happend to be a bit weaker in opinion of many, and you suddenly have problem with that?

And no it’s not like house, it’s internet, it’s blog, it’s write-up that gets commented. Your analogy is plain wrong.

mikex on August 15, 2010 at 5:17 am

haha naaa I think we all can see some flaw in ZN theory ^_^
but!
In my culture we don’t bash someone idea even it’s not a good one.
next time try using a word “interesting” or “disagree” instead of a “weak”

no need to say everything that pop up in our mind especaily if it is a negative one. (this is not an open web board its a blog)

better explore some good factor in his theory instead of bash the whole thing down (that s where we can create something good from nothing)
sorry about my english

sibelkacem on August 15, 2010 at 10:11 am

Could you describe what you mean by saying “bashing”? Disagreeing with article means one thinks it’s weak. I don’t think saying “weak” is bashing. It’s just about words. I think you associate too much importance to words and too less to actual meaning.

If your culture doesn’t allow criticise someone’s idea when it is not a good one, you have a very interesting culture (You see what I did there? :>).
In my culture, if one thinks an idea is wrong, one says so and backs his statement with reasons, like eg. SteveHolt did. Author will not cry because of that, and there is really no need for some warm words, because nobody got offended. There is no “negativity” in the meaning of bad feelings, or smth like that.

So, why should they behave like in your culture if they belong to other culture? Why do you force them to act according to your culture? Do you think your culture is better?

Next time, try keeping a bigger distance towards things you discuss

Btw, I personally didn’t say it’s weak. It is very thinkable, even without diagrams that a correlation exists. I only think “the defensiveness factor” should be called “the offensiveness factor” since the higher the values the less “defensive” the World Cup was.

Cheers

Miguel on August 14, 2010 at 11:29 pm

Does FIFA and/or the EPL keep statistic for blocked shots, e.g. blocked by a defender? That seems like one telling stat as they tend to occur much more when you’ve got “the bus parked” with half your team in the box.

I think the Inter-Barca game was very influential, but mainly to smaller clubs that will need to scrap to stay mid table or out of relegation. We might see a lot of poor-man’s Snieders running around and harrassing attacking teams this year.

KKlo on August 15, 2010 at 1:13 am

First I have to state that I think “defensiveness factor” is the wrong term as a higher value means less defensiveness.

But what I actually wanted to add: Even when we ignore the discussible way of creating the defensiveness factor and the overall quite random mix up of all the data the range of the goals per game-values makes the whole examination a bit ridicolous. The maximum difference isn’t even 0,15. It’s less than one goal in six matches! I don’t know other values but even the difference of the world cups 02 and 06 in that statistic is over 0,2.
I think the decrease between 2002 and 2004 in the EPL could possibly be a real tendency but those other changes around 0,03 goals per game are totally not worth mentioning.

hwk on August 15, 2010 at 9:42 am

There are two problems in comparing a knockout tournament and a league.

1. in a league every team plays the whole season, it doesn’t matter how poor you play. in a knockout (or groupstage + knockout) tournament a team with the ‘wrong’ tactics and strategy only plays ~50% of the tournament.

2. the fact that a World Cup is played only every 4 years and the qualification needed 2 years hard work for a small team, leads to risk-avoiding tactics (against skilful teams).

I think both points lead to a more extrem fluctuation of the goals per game ratio at the WC.

An other point is the fact that since Spain 1982 the gpg ration decreases as long as the number of participants doesn’t change (one exception: USA 1994 with 2,71). Spain 82 was the first tournament with 24 teams and the gpg ration went down the next two tournaments (2,81 -> 2,54 -> 2,21). France 98 was the first tournament with 32 teams and the gpg ratio went down to 2010 (it was even lower compared to USA 94) (2,67 -> 2,52 -> 2,30 -> 2,27). I think the new small teams concede a lot of goals and over the next tournaments the small teams gain experience.
Strange is that the ‘defensiveness factor’ increases from 1994 to 2002, but the gpg ratio went down. that means, the winer of the tournament (only the World Cups) scored a lot and changed the decreasing gpg ratio to a increasing def.-factor.

If we look at the Euros, we see similarity. From 1984 to 92 (all with 8 teams) the gpg ratio decreases (2,73 -> 2,27 -> 2,13), 1996 was a low point with 2,06 gpg (and the first tournament with 16 teams / strang, coz USA 94 was a high point with 2,71 gpg and the last time 24 teams). the tournaments with 16 teams (from 2000 to 2008) have been ’stable’ so far (2,74 -> 2,48 -> 2,48).
It’s funny that the last two Euros had the same gpg ratio but two totally different styles won (Greece 7:4 and Spain 12:3 goals).

the teams score 4 to 5 goals per tournament (average), they just need more games.

the times of attacking football from the 50s or 70s are over, today we see ‘kontrollierte Offensive’ or ‘Sicherheitsfußball’.

paul on August 15, 2010 at 10:06 am

I see…

a sudden increase in the number of teams in a tournament sees an increase in goals which must be due to the increase in the avereage “difference in quality” of teams.

This sugests that a league with lots of goals isnt better it’s ust less equal…

hwk on August 15, 2010 at 11:00 am

‘This sugests that a league with lots of goals isnt better it’s ust less equal’

Yes.

But it’s a difficult topic, because of different styles, trends in football etc.

It’s interesting that the teams / nations became more equal over the years. (non-european national teams with european coaches?)

Lets take a look at the Champions League. The teams that play every year CL and often reach the semi-final have a lot more money (and with that more power, skilful teams …) than ’smaller’ teams only playing every few years in the CL (Teams like Bremen, Sevilla or much more teams from Skandinavia, Belgium, Holland, Scotland, Balkan, … or teams never playing CL or EL).
Football became global and the national teams (as a result the WC) became more equal, because the biggest clubs / leagues soak the best players of the world up (that made the club system less equal).

The other question is: Why had USA 94 such a high gpg ratio, and England 96 such a low gpg? had there been an extreme change of the style within 2 years in Europe? Or, has Europe been scoring less than the rest of the world in 94?

in USA 94 ‘Europe’ scored 50:47 goals in the group stage (rest of the world 43:46) / (of course every game counts for the away and the home team). 10 from 12 european teams went to the next round (last 16).
I would not call that defensive or unsuccessful. now, it would be interesting to see against who Europe scored more goals (other european teams or ‘the rest’). but that’s too much work for the moment.

sibelkacem on August 15, 2010 at 11:21 am

Really great point about new teams in world cup after format extension. I fully agree.

However, I don’t understand your last point. I just am confused with this “they just need more games” – what did you want to say with it? On Euro, half the teams score half the goals playing half the matches, than on WC, and so the ratio is the same. So if there was twice as many teams and matches on Euro, the ratio would be the same, just the numbers doubled. How is this proving the point that 16-team tournament is better than 32-team tournament?

hwk on August 15, 2010 at 12:37 pm

You got me. I think that was a failure.
Euro96 or 2000 16 teams and 31 games (no semi-final loser game) and Euro88 8 teams and 15 games. but with 24 teams that changes.

lets look at 1986 and 2002, both tournaments have nearly the same gpg ratio (Mexico 86: 2,54; South Korea and Japan 02: 2,52), but Mexico had 24 participants and Korea+Japan 32.
24 teams have to play 52 games to find the WC winner (32 teams need 64 games). (52 games * 2 [every game is played by home and away team]) / 24 teams = 4,33 games per team; (64 * 2) / 32 = 4 games per team;

so, in 1986 ‘the average team’ played 4.33 games and scored 5.5 goals (5.5 / 4.33 = 1,27 goals per game per team -> 2 teams each game = 2.54 gpg; Blatter hates the draw? different story)

in 2002 ‘the average team’ played only 4 games (because all of the third placed teams in the groups had to go home) and scored 5.03 goals (5.03/4 = 1.26 poals per game per team => 2.52 for both).

i find it more interesting to analyse difference / development of the goals per game ratio over the rounds (group stage, last 16, quaterfinal,…) for each tournament.
we could see how the style changes in the tournament (even the first and the second game) and what kind of style is successful (okay, Spain was not defensive but scored less in the final rounds, and they scored late in the game. but it was part of their strategy.)
and we could analyse how the strategy changed over decades (just look at the group stage).

ish on August 15, 2010 at 10:54 am

i think back before more international light was in the game the WC might have influenced the game but in general the tactics of nearly every team bar maybe brazil were a good 2 years behind club football.

for instance inverted wingers, 433/4231/4321, attacking fullbacks, passing CM mixed with mobile CM and so on are at least 2-3 years old in the scheme of things.

if you look at the teams that did well nearly all were either possession based attack or counter attack. The more defensive teams rarely made it out of the group stages. the low amount of goals is more attributed to piss poor attack since from the games i watched the lower scoring attacking teams had multiple chances but scuffed them all.

if anything the higher teir teams are going for a more 50/50 mix partly due to the new offside rule and the simple fact that attacking fullbacks stretch play too much. You can risk it and keep your wingers up but it leaves you at a numerical disadvantage in your half if the fullbacks go up. inter won the CL playing defensively but they in reality risked alot playing like that, they kept their wingers up and went for the counter but as chelsea showed in the season that barce won it even if you have the advantage from that it can backfire on your arse as well.

David on August 15, 2010 at 1:15 pm

Even Arsene Wenger has been playing the Spain 4-2-3-1 / 4-2-1-3 formation in preseason…

Definitely food for thought. As others have stated, however, the fact that an attacking side, Spain, won regardless the incessant defensive formations placed before them should be the most telling event of WC ‘10. And in Euro ‘08 it was Spain again, but this time within a field of attack-minded sides. What that means is the world had two years to come up with an answer to the question of Spain’s tiki-taka. In the end it failed to find a solution of any consistency. As a result, when it comes right down to it, play attacking football if you want the edge. No magic formula to it, just think more ‘creative’ than ‘organized’ when picking key players. The technique required should be there for players of premiership caliber. Else, how’d they get to that level to begin with? Tackling?

Dunc on August 20, 2010 at 5:46 pm

Hi, just thought I’d be a geek and stick the results into a staistics program (although i was just trying to read the values of the scatterplot so it might be a bit out). It indicates there is a statistically significant relationship between the defensiveness of a world cup and the number of goals scored in the premiership. The p (or sig.) value of .034 means there is only 3 in 100 chance that the correlation is due to chance. As mentioned before, correlation doesn’t equal causation. However, it is certainly plausable that football strategies which have been demonstrated as effective in a major tournaments go on to influence the tactics adopted in the premiership. Or possibly more likely, strategy in football moves in cycles, becoming more and less defensive, and the coaches at the major tournaments are opperating at the ‘cutting edge’ of their proffession.